Hand Foot and Mouth Disease

Three boys... 12, 9, and 2. In all these years of parenting, I had never encountered Hand Foot and Mouth Disease. In fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't even know it existed for most of my life.

When you learn about other littles having these viruses, you wish parents well and kind of forget the details. Well, in our case, I had seen other moms in our parenting group post stories about this particular virus, but being that we hadn't dealt with it, I didn't give it much of second thought.

Well my little man was having an off day a couple of days ago and I attributed it to possible teething or growing pains. No big deal. He had a low grade fever of 99.1 that night but it was so low grade that I was not concerned at all. Well the following morning I woke up to a very cranky two year old with a rash. This rash was on his knees, hands, and feet... I knew what it was at first glance.

As most mothers do, I quickly ran a Google search for Hand Foot and Mouth and saw some pretty disturbing pictures of nasty rashes. Oh man, I should have guessed that I would immediately want to do whatever it took to heal this little man. I call the pediatrician and the on-call nurse asked us to come in. We avoid the doctor at all possible times but this one was a little different. I know nothing about this disease, or virus, or rash, or whatever. I wanted reassurance, so off to the pediatrician we went. She confirmed my suspicions and suggested ways to keep my little guy comfy. There's not much anyone can do to make this go away any faster but there's ways to comfort your child. We opted for making organic lemonade popsicles, and offering our guy plenty of icy drinks. Hydration is key here. As far as the blisters go... well we decided that a little coconut oil with lavender essential oil would do. We also used an oil from DoTerra called On Guard. This one is supposed to boost the immune system so we figured applying that to the bottom of babies' feet should keep them fighting off these bugs. My next plan is to use fresh aloe on his rash to prevent scarring.

So far, the blisters are ugly and frankly, a bit scary. 

Luckily, our little guy has been very good about taking in his liquids and eating this whole time. I can tell he is in pain at times but it seems to be subsiding now that a couple of days have passed. I hope he doesn't scar from any of these blisters. I suppose time will tell on that one. So we are on day 3 of this mess and hope that we don't have very much longer to go! Have you dealt with this in the past? If you have any encouraging advice, feel free to drop me tip in the comments!

~Norm